Mike Piazza & the Ethical Hall of Fame Debate

Mike Piazza is in the Hall of Fame, this much we know and this none of us can really change. For better or worse the first player to be linked or suspected of steroid use that played in the steroid era is in the Hall of Fame which has caused a stir around Major League Baseball. Did Piazza use and should he be in the Hall of Fame? These are just a couple of the questions that I am going to attempt, key word being attempt, to answer today in this blog post.


Before the comments and emails come flooding in I am well aware of Piazza’s autobiography where he admitted to using androstenedione and I am well aware that it was added to Major League Baseball’s list of banned substances in 2004. Andro is a muscle-building compound that was long banned by the International Olympic Committee before it was added to MLB’s banned list. Should he be punished for doing something that wasn’t illegal at the time? I think not, personally. That’s like locking up all the people in California, Colorado, Seattle etc. for smoking marijuana before it was made illegal in those states. It’s irresponsible and, in my opinion, not plausible.


It is worth mentioning that drug testing and Piazza’s home run power, or lack thereof, definitely had a direct correlation between each other. Piazza hit 33 home runs in 2002, the year before drug testing was talked about and before it was implemented in 2004 (and punishable in 2005), and that number dropped to 11 in 2003. Granted Piazza stayed injured for much of 2003 but that is also a side effect of prolonged steroid use per Jose Canseco, especially when you stop taking them. Piazza never went on to hit more than 22 in a season after drug testing was implemented but it is also worth mentioning that Piazza turned 35-years old in 2003. Playing behind the dish for 140 games a season takes a toll on your body, especially your lower half, so it could be chalked up as a coincidence and Mother Nature intervening rather than steroid use.


In the end we will never know EVERYONE who did steroids, either once or for a prolonged period of time. We will never know if someone in Cooperstown already had used steroids in the past and we’re likely to never know in the future if the BBWAA is electing steroid users into the Hall of Fame. This is why we must elect them all, suspicions or not, or none at all. With Piazza in I think that question just got answered, you have to elect them all now. Especially when you almost elected Tim Raines, an admitted cocaine addict that admitted to using cocaine DURING GAMES. There’s a fine line here people and many of you are jumping back and forth between it.

The Greatest DH’s in MLB History

The Hall of Fame vote for the 2016 inductions are over but that doesn’t mean the debate for 2016 and the speculation for the 2017 vote has to end. It won’t end here anyway because I have a ton to say about it and the free agency and trade markets aren’t doing us any favors to fill the time right now. We have gone over the best catchers of all-time as we looked to shine some light on the tremendous career of Mike Piazza and today we will look ahead to not only the 2017 class but the 2021 class as well. That’s when presumably David Ortiz will be eligible for the Hall of Fame with the five-year waiting period and the DH debate can begin once again.

I am piggybacking Scott Chiusano of the New York Daily News a bit as he released his own Top 5 DH’s of all-time by the numbers but I am putting my own spin on things like I tend to do. First I changed around his rankings a bit to fit my opinion and secondly I want to see how this list will or could affect Oritz when he comes up for Hall of Fame voting in 2021. First things first though, my list:

1.       Edgar Martinez

2.       David Ortiz

3.       Frank Thomas

4.       Harold Baines

5.       Paul Molitor

Paul Molitor was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2004 as a player while Frank Thomas was elected in 2004 by the Baseball Writers Association of America while the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, or the IBWAA, elected Edgar Martinez in 2016 to their Hall of Fame. Many believe that Harold Baines belonged in the Hall of Fame and Baines was elected to the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame in 2009. This leaves three of the Top 5 DH’s in MLB history in the Hall of Fame, one that many believe should be in the Hall of Fame and one just awaiting his candidacy. A lot can change between now and the 2021 Hall of Fame vote but by then, either because of the DH position or the steroid era, David Ortiz will likely be in…. as much as that pains me to say as a fan of the Yankees. 

What is “Andro” and Why Is it Banned?

Every year about this time the debate whether steroid era players should be in the Hall of Fame or not gets heated but do people really know what they are talking about? That’s not meant to be an insult or a questioning of your intelligence by any means but I’m serious, do people actually know what these steroids are and do people actually know what they do or do they follow along with the other sheep and baaaaaa all the way to the pasture? I like to think of myself as a leader and a trendsetter but also an educator when I can and I will attempt to do the latter today as I try and explain what exactly “Andro” is and explain why it is banned by Major League Baseball.

The word Andro, or Androstenedione, is a hormone that you used to be able to buy over the counter at any local GNC or pharmaceutical company that was made famous when Major League Baseball added it to its banned substance list in 2004. This was long after a reporter saw a bottle of it in Mark McGwire’s clubhouse locker in 1998 when he went on to save baseball from the strike and when he went on to break the single season home run record held by former Yankees All-Star Roger Maris and long after Mike Piazza admitted to using it in a 2013 autobiography he wrote. Why did sluggers like McGwire and Piazza want to take this? Well it was a muscle builder that promised it could increase your testosterone levels by as much as 400%. Andro also reportedly keeps your red blood cells healthy, enhances your recovery and shortens your recovery time from injuries and exercise and heightens your sexual arousal and performance but Andro does not come without its risks.

Those risks led then President George W. Bush to sign into law the Anabolic Steroid Control Act in 2004 which added Andro to the list of banned non-prescription steroid-based drugs. It was then that MLB, the NFL, college sports and the Olympics followed suit also banning Andro from their games. Andro is dangerous as a sudden spike in testosterone levels could absolutely destroy your liver for example while the drug also significantly reduces your “good” cholesterol number which could increase the risk of heart disease in longtime users. But if it works it is worth it right? Well according to a study done by Iowa State the stuff didn’t even really work anyway on its own.

Iowa State students and scientists did a study on Andro in 1999 with 20 healthy men as their control unit. Ten of them took Andro and 10 of them took a dummy pill made of rice flour while both sets of men underwent eight weeks of weight training and the gains in muscle bulk and strength were recorded. At the end of the eight weeks the numbers were almost identical. Either rice flour should be banned as well from MLB or Andro, again as a stand-alone drug, was a bust.

Which leads me to my conclusion, Andro is good for one and not to other? When I say “good” for one I mean Mike Piazza who was just elected into the MLB Hall of Fame with the other being Mark McGwire who has not yet been elected and was damned from baseball for a few years after his retirement. Scientists don’t even think Andro is worth a damn, again by itself, and yet we’re still keeping players out of the Hall of Fame because of it? Instead of, and this is directed towards the BBWAA, thinking you’re God, judge and jury how about you take a second to read a book and become educated on the matters before altering the course of MLB history because you think Andro altered it first.

This concludes another steroid-laced Hall of Fame rant by Daniel Burch. 

The Steroid Era Did These Players No Favors

With another year of Hall of Fame voting behind us and another year to discuss who should be in, who shouldn’t be in, who took what, who should be able to vote, who the judge, jury and executioner should be and who is really being helped and who is being hurt by the whole steroid era ahead of us I wanted to focus on a little something different today. All the talk surround the steroid era and the Hall of Fame is focused on players who got an unfair advantage and “cheated” the sport that cheated them in 1994 with the strike and work stoppage but what about the players that are being cheated by the steroid era? Players like Mike Piazza until recently and a few other standouts from this year’s class that didn’t get in. names like Jeff Kent, Gary Sheffield, Jim Edmonds, Sammy Sosa, Carlos Delgado, Fred McGriff and Larry Walker. What about them? 

Carlos Delgado finished his MLB career with 473 home runs and a .929 OPS but spent just one year on the ballot, not because he was elected in his first year of eligibility but because he didn’t garner 5% of the vote in his first year and will forever be left off the ballot. Fred McGriff on the other hand thankfully garnered his 5% in his first year of eligibility but it still on the outside looking in despite 493 home runs and a career .886 OPS.  

Then you have more current names like Jeff Kent, Jim Edmonds, Gary Sheffield and Larry Walker who all received around 10% of the vote despite stunning numbers in their careers. In Sheffield’s case specifically he was listed on the Mitchell Report explaining the lack of interest in electing him into baseball’s hall of immortality but the rest of the group is still puzzling. Jeff Kent is possibly the best hitting second baseman of all-time but he played in an era where players took steroids and played beside the most notorious suspected steroid user of all in San Francisco, Barry Lamar Bonds.  

Sammy Sosa has 609 career home runs and Rafael Palmeiro had over 500 home runs and 3000 hits, neither are in the hall or on the ballot. Palmeiro failed a drug test and waived his finger in front of Congress, Sosa did not. Sosa did suddenly forget how to speak English but that’s a thing, right? It’s not even important if you used or not anymore, what’s important now to many of these voters (it seems anyway) is when you played. Steroids may or may not have helped these players during their playing career but they damn sure aren’t helping them now, that much is for sure. 

I’ll probably never get a Hall of Fame vote and it’s probably for the best, I am too vocal and too friendly towards the steroid era. I want these players in because I am 100% sure there are players that used steroids before testing was implemented in the mid-2000’s that are still in the Hall. What’s good for one is good for them all and it’s a shame that Delgado, Kent, Sheffield, Palmeiro, Edmonds, Walker and McGriff may never get into the Hall because of the era they played in, not the stats and such that they compiled while playing. 

Mike Piazza & the Ethical Hall of Fame Debate

Mike Piazza is in the Hall of Fame, this much we know and this none of us can really change. For better or worse the first player to be linked or suspected of steroid use that played in the steroid era is in the Hall of Fame which has caused a stir around Major League Baseball. Did Piazza use and should he be in the Hall of Fame? These are just a couple of the questions that I am going to attempt, key word being attempt, to answer today in this blog post.

Before the comments and emails come flooding in I am well aware of Piazza’s autobiography where he admitted to using androstenedione and I am well aware that it was added to Major League Baseball’s list of banned substances in 2004. Andro is a muscle-building compound that was long banned by the International Olympic Committee before it was added to MLB’s banned list. Should he be punished for doing something that wasn’t illegal at the time? I think not, personally. That’s like locking up all the people in California, Colorado, Seattle etc. for smoking marijuana before it was made illegal in those states. It’s irresponsible and, in my opinion, not plausible.

It is worth mentioning that drug testing and Piazza’s home run power, or lack thereof, definitely had a direct correlation between each other. Piazza hit 33 home runs in 2002, the year before drug testing was talked about and before it was implemented in 2004 (and punishable in 2005), and that number dropped to 11 in 2003. Granted Piazza stayed injured for much of 2003 but that is also a side effect of prolonged steroid use per Jose Canseco, especially when you stop taking them. Piazza never went on to hit more than 22 in a season after drug testing was implemented but it is also worth mentioning that Piazza turned 35-years old in 2003. Playing behind the dish for 140 games a season takes a toll on your body, especially your lower half, so it could be chalked up as a coincidence and Mother Nature intervening rather than steroid use.

In the end we will never know EVERYONE who did steroids, either once or for a prolonged period of time. We will never know if someone in Cooperstown already had used steroids in the past and we’re likely to never know in the future if the BBWAA is electing steroid users into the Hall of Fame. This is why we must elect them all, suspicions or not, or none at all. With Piazza in I think that question just got answered, you have to elect them all now. Especially when you almost elected Tim Raines, an admitted cocaine addict that admitted to using cocaine DURING GAMES. There’s a fine line here people and many of you are jumping back and forth between it. 

Steroid Era Players, Welcome to the Hall of Fame!

The flood gates are open ladies and gentleman as the first player from the steroid era to either be linked to or suspected of steroid use has made his way into Cooperstown, New York. Congratulations goes out to former New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza on his Hall of Fame candidacy, it’s been a long time coming. It’s also a sign that the times are changing around Major League Baseball, especially in the Hall of Fame voting process. Jon Heyman already went out and defended the fact that he put Barry Bonds on his HOF ballot and you can see now that the numbers for Bonds and Clemens are continuing to rise every year giving hope to anyone and everyone from the steroid era. With Piazza’s induction I can see more and more players from that era getting in, eventually.

Piazza shared the same stage as Ken Griffey Jr. on Wednesday and will share that same stage when they are officially inducted into the Hall later this year. How can you keep out Clemens and Bonds when the sole reason that Piazza was left off was his suspicion of steroid use? You can’t and the doors are about to be ripped from their hinges.

Piazza was a 12-time All-Star and hit 427 home runs in his career with a .922 OPS which both set the tone for the offensive catcher that we see in today’s game. Piazza was a trend setter and he changed the game, suspicion for steroids or not. And that’s the thing, he’s suspected of it. He was never linked to steroids during his career, he wasn’t on the Mitchell Report, and he wasn’t linked to BALCO or Biogenesis or whatever the craze was back then. Nothing. He hit home runs in an era that was tainted by many that hit home runs. That’s all. A wrong has been righted and I can’t say I have ever been prouder of the BBWAA right now. Congrats Mike and congrats to Junior Griffey!

Isn’t it ironic that the man that Roger Clemens threw a splintered bat at during the 2000 World Series between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets may be the same man that gets him into the Hall of Fame? Should Clemens send a thank you card? How does one react in these situations? I for sure don’t know… 

Ryan Howard & Ryan Zimmerman Are Suing Al Jazeera

Remember right after Christmas when the Al Jazeera Network released a documentary about steroids in sports while releasing the names of Peyton Manning, Mike Neal, Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Howard and Taylor Teagarden? Well the Guyer Institute-Gate hasn’t quite taken off like the Biogenesis Clinic debacle but that hasn’t stopped the players involved from throwing their weight around in terms of lawsuits. Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard and Washington Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman have filed defamation lawsuits against Al Jazeera after naming them specifically in the Guyer Institute and steroid documentary.

The name of the documentary is “The Dark Side” and it showcases that steroids are still prevelant in not only Major League Baseball but in all North American sports. In the documentary Howard and Zimmerman claim that Al Jazeera has damaged by “outrageously false and defamatory statements recklessly made by the cable news network” according to the lawsuit they filed on Tuesday of this week.  Both Zimmerman and Howard are seeking damages in excess of $75,000, the maximum allowed in a civil case filed in federal court.

This is going to get ugly before it gets resolved. Stay tuned.